by SUSAN MANN
Cash crop farmers Steve and Carolyn Rastorfer won’t appeal an Ontario Municipal Board ruling upholding Huron East’s decision allowing a company to store biosolids from a meat processing plant in farm buildings on land near Monkton.
Steve says “we’re done with it all.”
The Board released its decision April 9. It found the proposed use of the farm property related to agriculture and was consistent with the Provincial Policy Statement that encourages waste products to be diverted from landfill sites.
Ontario Greenways Inc. plans to store the biosolids from the Cargill Better Beef processing plant in Guelph in two former turkey barns on a 57-acre farm near the Huron-Perth County border. One barn is 60 feet by 250 feet in size. The other is 60 feet by 200 feet. The material would be spread on land during the summer and fall within a three to four-mile radius of where it’s being stored and used as fertilizer, it says in the Board’s written decision.
Ontario Greenways couldn’t be immediately reached for comment.
The Board noted the project needs a certificate of approval from the Ministry of the Environment and the Rastorfers’ concerns about odour could be addressed as part of that process.
Environment Ministry spokesperson Kate Jordan says they’ve received an application from Ontario Greenways for the handling and storage of non-hazardous waste materials. But it hasn’t been approved yet.
Steve doubts the ministry will address their concerns.
Ministry officials have two days to respond to a complaint, Steve says. “By the time the two days are up they (Ontario Greenways Inc.) will probably be done moving the stuff out of the barns.”
Jordan says the certificate would have conditions so the material can’t cause an adverse impact and that would include odour.
The ministry would take neighbour’s concerns into account before issuing the certificate. “We would ensure that the company has plans in place to mitigate any concerns,” she says.
The public can complain to either a ministry district office or the 24-hour, seven-days-a week spills action centre, she says. For odour complaints, the ministry could send staff out to try and determine the source and require a company to take steps to mitigate the odour.
The Rastorfers and other neighbours are also concerned about runoff, rodents, traffic from the daily truck delivery of the material to the site and the movement of materials on the site by spreaders, the impact the project would have on area land values, and the adequacy of the former turkey barns to house the material.
Steve says he went to the processing plant to check out the material. He says officials have said the biosolids, which contains cow stomach particles, don’t smell. But it “really stinks.”
He adds that he can see the barns that will be used to store the material from his farm.
In its decision, the Municipal Board noted the municipality’s rush to make a decision gave the appellants the feeling their concerns weren’t given adequate consideration.
Carol Leeming, planner with Huron County which provides planning advice to its member municipalities including Huron East, says she didn’t think the decision was rushed. “There was a public meeting held (July 7, 2009) and the issues were discussed at that meeting.” BF
Comments
This material which is causing so much concern locally is well suited to become fuel in a renewable energy gasification project. Typically 1 kg of 20% moisture content fuel per hour will provide enough syn gas to produce 1 kW of electrical energy. 1000 kg per hour would produce 1 MW of electrical power and 10 MM BTU of usable heat.
We can make this problem into a profit center. Sort of spinning straw into gold.
Neal Van Milligen
Bioten Power and Energy Group Inc
www.biotenpower.com
cavm@aol.com
I am a concerned neighbour. Here are some of my issues that I hope will be considered when the MOE completes their technical review for this Certificate of Approval(CofA). I am taking a proactive approach to hopefully prevent problems that may occur in the future.
This waste material is new and therefore much research needs to be completed. I have only found 1 report from the Biosolids Utilization Committee that has studied this material. It states that storage structures should be well removed from neighbours in order to minimize potential odour. Please note that my house is one of the 3 neighbouring residences that all are located less than 600m from the storage area. I do not consider this distance to be “well removed,” if this was a large manure storage application the Minimum Distance Separation factor would prevent this storage from being permitted.
This CofA application is a large storage facility with a capacity of 6450 tonnes and the waste may be stored over a longer period of time. I hope that the MOE will conduct further studies that show “no odour” impacts tested with large quantities that will be tested over a long period of time.
This waste product, although dewatered, still is 60 – 70 % moisture. Where will this run-off go? This storage lies on a boundary of 2 tributaries, I trust that a hydrological study will be done given the location of the proposed storage.
Storage is another concern for me. This proposed storage of this waste is in turkey barns. These turkey barns have curtain walls (not solid cement), holes in the floor(or lower walls) for drainage and floors that are not designed for heavy daily tractor traffic or extreme weight. I hope that a comprehensive structural study will be completed with load tests and seepage tests. Curtain walls will not prevent odours from affecting the air quality in the neighbourhood.
Another concern is that this waste will have to be unloaded outside the barns, then pushed into the barns on a daily basis. I am concerned with run-off issues, odour issues, and rodent issues. I hope that the MOE will conduct studies to ensure that these issues don't exist.
On August 10th 2009, prior to the appeal, I wrote a letter to the MOE stating some of my concerns with this application. My questions were not answered but the MOE did state that the Ministry considers and reviews comments.
I feel that before this Certificate of Approval decision is to be made, several studies need to be done that address the above concerns. I hope that the MOE will make a well-informed, and well educated decision.
Carolyn
More and more we see the Ontario Ministry of the Environment allowing these kind of lax standards for the management of wastes in rural Ontario.
Cargil slaughterhouse sludge isn't a farm material, it is an industrial waste. And it has no place in an ancient turkey barn.
Industry should be building modern facilities for the management of their wastes...and the use of high fat sludges for fuel makes good sense in the era of mad cow disease and high groundwater contamination in the countryside.
We see the same type of problem proposed just west of London Ontario where a sludge hauler wants to put sewage sludge in the old concrete pit from a burned down pig barn. Very high risk enterprise.
As to Cargill
Is there going to be specified risk material in these sludge materials? (ie mad cow disease prion risk material) From the description it sounds like 'paunch manure'...the contents of the stomach of the slaughtered cattle. In most jurisdictions this paunch manure is considered a prion risk material because it is so
close to the ileum...which is a specified prion risk material.
This Cargil-waste-in-an-antique-barn proposal isn't 'recycling'. This is a waste holiday for industry...and risks making the lives of the neighbours a stinking noisy pathogenic hell. It makes taking a shower or a drink of tap water into a high risk activity.
Maureen Reilly
Sludge Watch
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